Possibly the longest Eff-Bee-tionship ever.

Perhaps the most puzzling eff-bee-tionship I’ve been in is one that lasted for about a year and a half.

How does that happen?

I decided that the third time wasn’t the lucky charm at the workplace and decided that walking the fast path to becoming the Store Slore wasn’t for me.

Hmm, where did I meet Señor Sinverguenza (whom we’ll dub as SS from this point forward, as it’s annoying to look for the ALT shortcut to create the tilde)? Oh yes, he was close friends with a guy I was friends with in high school, and our mutual circles ran into each other.Ahh senior year of high school and the summer that followed. Such memories. The beefs with the Latinos and Blacks, the skip days (which became skip parties), the stench of too much Bath and Body Works on female adolescent skin, wayyyy too much Polo sport on the guys’ skin, baggy pants, Nike Cortez shoes with fat laces, too-big Timberlands,  makeup caked on our young faces, trips to the city for green.  

Playing music loudly in cars…my songs of choice were Mobb Deep’s ‘Get Away;’ there’s something glamorous about being a gangsta runnin the block in Queensbridge, leaving the black Navigator running and unlocked, because you BE’S the block. Everyone is wearing either Triple Fat Goose or North Face bubble jackets, dark jeans, Gore-Tex boots, and is puffing smoke from their lips, all in slow motion, giving deadly glares to the camera, while a deep bass beat thumps in the background. It smells of Black and Milds and sensemilla. To my lower middle-class ears, this sounded like a slice of heaven that I would devour hungrily each time I slipped the CD in. Yes. Ignorance. Sheer ignorance.

But I digress.  

SS and I started as friends, really and truly we did. It wasn’t like with Mr. Downtown and Mr. BabyFavah where it was just an attraction thing, and I didn’t pick up on the signs that they wanted one thing, and only one thing from me. We were friends. We’d play soccer at night in the field across the street from his cousin’s complex. Eat Peruvian chicken sandwiches, the mystery green sauce running down our fingers.

We’d do stupid things, like pour acetone nail polish remover on our hands and set it on fire, then douse it in the sink. See how much Raid it took to drown a roach. A mutual interest in music, movies, and outlooks on life made being around each other like pulling your socks on before leaving the house, easy and routine.

For the record, I don’t consider myself easy and routine; however, at some point, I became that way with SS. There’s this saying that you’ll always remember your first time with each person you have relations with, but I can’t remember the transition from friend to buddy. Maybe it started with an experimental kiss. Maybe it started with him calling me pretty (because we all know, the way to an eff-bee’s vagina is to shower her with compliments). Maybe it was like the telenovelas where the musical is all loud and dramatic as the on screen couple engages in a near suffocating liplock, but in all honestly, it probably wasn’t.

I remember we did it in places we weren’t supposed to. Discreetly. Sometimes not so discreetly. Almost caught a few times by his father. But we didn’t eff all the time. I was tight with his sister, close with his cousin, cool with his pops, getting there with Momdukes.

We were inseparable. I got him a job at one of the branch stores in my company. I looked out for him. I thought he looked out for me.  Naturally, that ‘what are we?’ conversation never took place. That’s what happens, it seems long enough that you’re comfortable around the person, that you don’t think the talk is necessary, cause you ‘get’ each other. Until you realize that you got got.

Like I said, our re-fake-tionship went on for almost two years. But really, it wasn’t a relationship. No birthday presents, unless you count me getting him something. Valentine’s day was more of a ‘Hey, Cindy, I thought about getting you something for Valentine’s day,’ but no follow through. No sort of support through anything, unless it was me telling him he wasn’t ugly. Yes. Men have self-esteem issues too. And he was far from Shrek.

All this time, I didn’t know, he had started seeing a Someone Else towards the end, whom he was introduced to by a high school friend of mine. Yet, it continued, this strange bond between him and I. I didn’t know how to say anything, to speak up.  I didn’t confront him until he had gotten into an accident while driving my car, and it led to me having a breakdown in the passenger seat, half from the shock that there were pieces of my car strewn about the road, and half from all the confusion between us. You know, that kinda breakdown. Tears and snot, sniveling, hyperventilating and stuff.

It caused strain, my fervent requests for definition, and his lack of a response each time, (and my inability to see that he was getting the milk for free, and the friendship, so why try to buy the cow?) we had numerous conversations in the dark of my car, or his mom’s, and him saying he was sorry for hurting me, but checking his cell phone for text messages every five minutes (though, yes, on one such occasion, I do remember him rubbing his eyes, as if he was affected by the whole situation. I mean, it might have been dirt or an eyelash caught up in there, but it seemed authentic.).

From those moments on, it was like bringing down a mighty hammer upon a sheet of ice floating atop the coldest sea. So many tiny pieces, breaking away. I felt betrayed by both him and my friend who played Cupid, so I picked up the pieces of my bedraggled friendship and…whatever it was that we had, and disappeared from his life. I drowned my sorrows in the company (and probably projected my anger on, I’m sure) of another eff-bee, though I never effed him (and oh, thank heavens I didn’t. He was batty. Diagnosed, even.). Unless you count him effing me…with his mouth. Bill didn’t, at first. Should I? Because really, that’s a seedy entry.

I ran into him at a New Year’s party some years later, matter-of-factually, Cupid-friend’s party (I learned to forgive and forget). I had lost a tremendous amount of weight due to the demise of a REALationship (bonafide! broke my heart and everything), probably looked fabulous, and he seemed really happy to see me. As I said, I was on a path to forgiveness, so I was cordial but cool. He grabbed my cell phone out of my hand while I was in conversation with another friend and called his phone on it. ‘There,’ he said, handing it back to me. ‘I’ve missed you so much. I really feel awful for what I did to you. It was stupid and selfish. I just want to have a long talk. We have so much to talk about.’

He called me the next day. I didn’t pick up. Yes, I had forgiven, but no need to slice the wound open to remember. I figured it would be best if I left well enough, alone. I heard he had a baby with the girl he was seeing seriously, while being less than serious with me. I really hope he’s doing okay, to this day.  

See, not all eff-bees are horrible people.  

I’m not a slore, not yet a girlfriend.

So you would have thought I’d have learned my lesson from Mr. Downtown. Sadly…I didn’t.

Mr. BabyFavah started work a few months after Mr. Somebody was terminated. I thought he was cute, but I was determined to never put myself in a Store Slore category again, and kept my distance from him. I did admire him from afar, his dark chocolate skin, chiseled body, and handsome face. I think he must have caught me staring a few times, and one day, he sauntered over to my department and introduced himself.

Turned out, he was the son of one of the managers. The scary one. The one who managed to get all her children working there. She really took a shine to me, though. She encouraged Mr. BabyFavah to converse with me, even.

Supposedly, the most important person in his life was his son. Yes. I choose them well, don’t I? Mr. BabyFavah, was in fact, a baby’s father. His son was a toddler. I thought he was cute. I had never dealt with someone with a child. I found it endearing how ‘fatherly’ he acted towards his son whenever he brought him into the store.

I don’t remember when we started having sex. It just happened. I remember it happened a few times in cars (on one occasion, he, er, um, arrived within 45 seconds–I was proud, but foolishly so), once on the living room floor of his mother’s house, once in his room quietly, trying not to wake his family. It happened protected, and a few times, unprotected (genius, right? WRONG.). He would rarely kiss me on the mouth. If he did, it was never passionate, never a sense of urgency. It was like what you do when there’s nothing else to do. His lips were dry and lifeless. I hated going down on him, but I did it because I was stupid.

I’d buy clothes for his son, food for him at lunch, whatever he wanted, I would take care of him. He never took me on dates, never bought anything nice for me. He baited me with promises of going out together on a weekend, if he could get his mom to babysit his son. That weekend never came.

I would let him borrow my car and he’d make weed runs. One time I got pulled over for doing a Cali Roll through a stop sign, and he frantically brushed weed seeds off his shirt as the officer approached my car. Thankfully nothing happened.

I was stupid. Damn all those food runs. Spending my hard earned cash on someone who didn’t appreciate me.

On one such food run, I got a wakeup call. I was bringing his greasy ass Burger King bag back to his department, and saw New Girl giggling and touching his arm playfully. Her eyes narrowed to razor-thin slits when she saw me and she left. Her weave doobie switched like a cat’s tail as she walked away. I shoved the bag into his chest and made my way to the break room (how adequate a title for such a space), pissed. He followed me.

“You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” I hissed over the hum of the surround sound system in the break room.

“No, we’re just friends, that’s all. You mean a lot to me, I’m glad we’re friends,” he stammered.

That word, that horrid horrid word, friends, the ‘f‘ shaped like a gun pointed downwards. How I wished at that very moment that it would discharge, and blow his testicles off at that very second, so he could perhaps feel what I was going through. How many words began with ‘f‘ at that very second. Friends. Fuck. Fornicate. Fail. Feelings. Futile. Hot angry tears started to sear the edges of my eyelids. How stupid could I be?

I waited for the burning to stop, composed myself, and went back to work. That day, I was numb.

I came home, tore off my uniform and cried into a pillow. Two in a row, why?! I considered myself a reasonably good person. I never had ulterior motives when it came to meeting new people. It really messed with my mind.

As if to add insult to injury, of course Mr. BabyFavah was lying to me about New Girl. He carried on with her like they had a real relationship. She was ridiculous with the attitude towards me. Eventually their bond developed into a real relationship. He took her places in public, bought her chains, presents, you name it.

Although at work I wore the poker face very well, it KILLED ME that she got what I felt I deserved all along, a living, breathing relationship. I unknowingly began to build a lot of resentment towards her, and she did the same towards me. But why? She had the relationship and I didn’t. I was Ariel, and she was Ursula. She cast her vaginal spell on Mr. BabyFavah, and I was left without a voice and without a man (if that’s what you want to call Mr. BabyFavah).

One day, she came to work visibly upset. She sat at the breakroom table, and tears welled into her eyes.

At the time, my Evil Vindictive Bitch Bone (EVBB, get with the acronyms now, because later, I might use them at will) wasn’t formed, so I asked her what was wrong.

She stared at me for about a full minute, until she slowly sounded out the words, “I know you guys fucked. I know you fucked Mr. Downtown too. I was fucking him too. It is what it is, and I can’t be mad about it. [Mr. BabyFavah] can be so fucked up sometimes, though, in general.”

We ended up on speaking terms that summer, and I learned that she was jealous of me, and so she tried to get in where she could fit in. The funny thing was, where she fit was the puzzle piece that I was longing to have all along. She said Mr. BabyFavah had gotten her pregnant, and left with no other options, got an abortion.

She told me Mr. BabyFavah knew he was doing me wrong, and felt a little bad for it, but was taking full advantage of my kindness (and my wallet). On one of his many runs in MY car, they had sex in my backseat. She had driven my car on many runs. I felt like a small water balloon that had been squeezed between many fists.

She looked deep into my eyes. “Cindy, why were you so stupid and sprung off him? Why?”

She got up from her seat, put her things away, and walked out to the sales floor.

Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, if you have a EVBB in place, the relationship didn’t come to an end between New Girl and Mr. BabyFavah. Maybe they deserved each other. Another coworker of mine had run up in her, and told me in confidence that she gave him that burn that requires a doctor’s visit and some meds. Mr. BabyFavah kept doing his dirt with other girls. There was something about New Girl though. I swear one day he was in tears over some words they exchanged. Either that or he had something in his eye.

Eventually, he too, was fired. Surprisingly, the Scarlett Letter was still not emblazoned upon my cheap cotton work shirt. Sure, people knew something went down between Mr. BabyFavah and I, but people looked at me with sympathy rather than smirks. I didn’t know which of the two was better, at that time. Of course, I tried my hardest to forget him. Things would be mildly tense when he would show up to meet New Girl, but by then, I had moved on to someone new, yet another FB-ship.

His mother came to me some years later, after I had graduated from college, and said that Mr. BabyFavah heard that I was making something out of my life, and told his mother to tell me he was sorry he messed up, and he was glad I was doing something positive. She said she didn’t understand what he was apologizing to me for. However, after seeing my eyes shine over with tears, she did tell me I was a very genuine person.

I politely told her thank you. Because sometimes, there’s nothing else to say.

Looking back, I know it wasn’t sheer stupidity. I had my nose open. I’ve never been the pretty girl in school, mostly the shy girl who wasn’t used to attention from men. So whenever I got it, it was I had this urge to do whatever I had to do to keep it. I wish young girls would realize, that they don’t have to run to the ends of the earth to please someone. Most of the time, the person they’ve placed on a pedestal isn’t even worth it. Sadly, I know women, grown women, who still do this very thing to men. No man bash-o, it’s just my observations.

I guess, ultimately, my goal is to relax, relate, release. I hope someone reading this learns from my mistakes, but way before they make some of their own.

And because these are memoirs, there’s a lot more than just two memories.

Brazen gropes a girlfriend does not make.

Naivety. We all come into this world clutching a jarful of it, and some of us manage not to break the jar until we’re well into life.

My jar began to develop cracks when I was about 17 or so. I was going on my first interview for a retail electronics store. He spotted me. I didn’t find him too particularly attractive, but we struck up conversation. We’ll call him Mr. Downtown, for all intents and purposes. He was from Uptown, actually, New York to be exact. His life had been split between New York and Southern Virginia. He had cornrows. Glasses. Smooth dresser.

I had been recently deflowered at the tender age of 16, and was on #3 by the time I met Mr. Downtown. It was regrettable and forgettable. Maybe it’ll be another blog. Maybe not. I don’t like to revisit my first time. Looking back, I think 16-19 is way too young to be dealing with guys, and I was no different. Okay, yes. This will be a future blog. There’s a soapbox with my name on it.

Anywho, Mr. Downtown and I struck up a conversation. We both got the job at the store. He was enthralled with my hair, my skin, my everything. He could play the piano and had a nice build. Eventually, I warmed up to him. We’d hang out. One of his good friends worked there as well as did one of mine, and we all lived within a 10 minute drive of each other, so that summer was particularly one of branching out from the usual group of friends you have in high school.At 18, you think you know everything, and no one can tell you that you don’t. You think you know the ins and outs of relationships, when the truth is, you’re just a seedling starting to show some green through the soil of this garden called relationships. See, look at me starting to put one rain boot-covered foot on that soapbox.  

Back to Mr. Downtown. A first kiss on a park bench turned into a first grope, and from then it turned into us messing around at my parents’ house while they were out at work, at his mother’s house while she was at work, using the car as, well…you know we weren’t driving it. He was brazen. I was shy, without enough self confidence or self respect to tell him no, it wasn’t okay to do certain things in public.  I had only been in one relationship, one bonafide relationship before I met Mr. Somebody, and with the ex, it was simple. He asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes.  

With Mr. Downtown, it wasn’t that simple.  I was FB Unawares. I thought that us hanging out nearly every day, me going over to his house, him coming over to mine, having Blockbuster nights, meant something. I thought that holding hands in the dark of his car, and kissing (and a little bit more), established a relationship. I thought the pager texts (yes, we had two way pagers, y’all) asking me what I was wearing, and not to wear panties the next time we saw each other signified me being desired enough to be his girl. Stupid, right? But 18, oh man, you think you know it all.  Thankfully, my good girl upbringing made no one at work think that anything of a sexual nature was going on between us, in other words, I was not the store slore (slut + whore). His best friend knew what was going on (b/c real talk, dudes are like girls. They don’t gossip while painting their toenails, or getting their hair done, but in the locker rooms, in the barber shops, it happens), but he was respectful and didn’t say much.  It wasn’t until I saw him flirting with a new girl at the job, that I realized we were not exclusive. He spit the same game to her that he did to me.  

It took me a few long months to confront him. I would even break down and cry in front of him, and ask him what made me not good enough to be his girlfriend. He explained that he was too young to be looking for a girlfriend, and that I was special to him, that we were ‘Special Friends.’ He explained that he didn’t mean to hurt me. But he would carry on with New Girl at work. At first he would spit game to her on my days off, but it got to the point where he would carry on with her right in front of me. New Girl didn’t like me, and probably applied the ‘Ho Theory’ to my persona based on what Mr. Downtown told her.  

Meanwhile, I was crestfallen. I would go to work, wear a fake smile, ignore the hell out of him, and then come home and cry. I would ignore his text messages, his phone calls, and eventually, he began to ignore me at work. Coworkers caught on, and I could hear the whispers behind my back. Strangely, I still was able to maintain my integrity. A manager confronted me and gave me some sound advice, and said I was doing the right thing by being professional.It didn’t heal the hurt, though. I really liked him.  One sunny day before the holiday season kicked off, he got fired, for repeatedly coming in late. I was overjoyed. Part of me still thinks that my manager took up for me, and fired him because he saw how miserable I was when I worked.  

A few months later, his friend (who also got fired, eventually) told me that all along, Mr. Somebody had a girlfriend in Norfolk. They had been together for 3 years (he was 20, at the time). He said that while he was his friend, he didn’t agree with how dirty Mr. Somebody could be, and told me I deserved much better.  I went on a mission to forget about him. I deleted his number, deleted the text messages, broke the CDs he had given me, and smashed to bits the bracelet I had slid off his wrist after one sweaty night in the back of his Isuzu.  Out of sight, out of mind. The hurt eventually became a sting, and finally a scar.

I ran into him a few years later; ironically, he was really good friends with the older brother of another one of my high school friends, and he stopped by their house while I was visiting. He told me my body filled out in all the right places, attempted to grab my hand and stroke it, and asked me if I still had his number. I don’t recall exactly what I said to him, but I do remember he left in a huff.  I felt triumphant in that one moment, but it was only the beginning of the broken record I’d play so many more times in my life.  

How it begins…

It’s only by the third of fourth encounter that you realize, hey, this isn’t a relationship. Relationships don’t start at 11 p.m. on a Saturday evening, they shouldn’t start with drinks, and end with you pulling your clothes back on, burying your face in your hands and holding back tears, while they wash the sex you had off their body. How did being intrigued by someone’s intellect, ability to keep up a conversation, superbly soft lips, and general flyness turn into late night phone calls, you packing a day’s change of clothing into an overnight bag, and rushing out the door into your car? When did you skip over that pivotal part of getting to know someone, and define those boundaries of said knowing? Was it at the McDonald’s drive through? Was it when you realized you were not the only one, and whoever that ‘one’ was, had more of a title than you ever could earn? Then you try to muster up that courage that got you in this mess in the first place, to speak up and say something.

‘Hey, I thought we were more than just…this.’

‘Yeah, you’re cool and all, and we get along, but…I’m just not ready for a relationship, you know? Too busy. Too much going on my life.’

At this point, you pack up your belongings, including your used vagina and broken heart, and move on.

Call me sexist. Call me anti-feminine. But I think it’s highly impossible for women to have casual encounters without EVENTUALLY catching feelings. And sometimes, even before we realize, ‘Hey, he took that girl out on a date. Why didn’t he ever do that for me? Why are we always in his house, but never in public together?,’ we get put into THAT slot.

The FB. Friend with Benefits. The Frieni-Ben. The Fuckbuddy. The Fark-Buddy.

This is a memoir of my melancholy eff-bee-dom. Read if you dare.